Beads are being sold nearly everywhere, and being made by hobbyist and professional craftspeople. Professional craftspeople and hobbyists alike are producing their own beads in metals, enamels, gemstones, glass, clay and polymer clays, even in plastics and paper. Fanciers collect beads for their historical and anthropological, as well as intrinsic and esthetic value.
To a jeweler with the proper tools and experience, making fastening systems for mounting of these beads and other ornaments is easy. However, the average bead fancier who wants to make his or her beads as earrings, brooches, or pendants may not have the skill, equipment or time to make these findings upon which to mount pierced ornaments. Therefore, standard findings and other component which are available do not meet the needs of the consumer. The brooch, earring and pendant components (findings) currently available do not offer creative latitude and the look of finished fine jewelry. Furthermore, those findings with threaded components do not have locking features.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 148,390; 635,249; 1,515,313; 2,275,984; 2,287,865; and 4,041,946 show pins or earrings with a wire that has a fastening system on one end that holds the other end of the wire while fastened. The fastening systems are not removable from the wire. This is a critical limitation, because beads or stone can not be applied from either side.
U.S. Pat. No. 741,024 discloses a hat fastener made from a wire and a bead with two parallel holes for securing the wire. One end of the wire and one hole in the bead are threaded. The threaded end of the wire is screwed into the threaded hole and the wire is bent back on itself 180.degree.. The non-threaded end of the wire is removably held in the other hole in the bead. While this device might work well for hat pins, the fact that the holes are parallel limits the usefulness of the device for making pins and earrings. In most instances the pin or earring forms a loop wherein the two ends of the wire are not parallel when they come back together.